tort
Demo Gamer
Posts: 18
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Post by tort on May 3, 2017 8:04:11 GMT
I don't have a problem with the table marker restriction, it's stupid but it's workable. I have a problem with the measurement restriction. You need to let players use the tools available to measure things they are allowed to measure. Make players pick them up after the measurement if you want but limiting the tools you can use in measuring is hugely problematic. As it stands right now things like those base width markers that let you place them together to measure windy movement are either illegal or I can use the base at the end of one of those and ignore the proxy restrictions. All new measurement widgets, all innovation in widgets must be illegal or they have to have pages and pages of constantly updating rules and questions on the forum. I don't need to adjudicate 100 different arguments about whether or not these curved measuring devices count as table markers and whether or not the current long winding measurement someone is making should count as multiple measurements.
I think the problem is that PP don't know what they want to ban. Too many bases on the table confusing people as to what they represent - OK limit the number you can leave on the table once you finish measuring. People are pre-measuring everything to plan out all the options of their turn - you have to limit what people can measure to fix this. Go back to something like last edition. Making people only measure with warsticks and tape measures doesn't fix this, it's just makes it confusing and irritating to do a measurement you could do more easily and accurately provided you were allowed to use the tools you have. If it's not a problem then leave measurement alone. If planning out all the options you have and working out what can go where before you move a model is a problem I have news for you - I have been doing this since MKI. You use the measurements you are allowed to make to make the best plans you can and the only way to stop a player from planning out all the important actions of their turn is to let the opponent move models or take actions to disrupt it. Making them Macguyver a measurement by taking away the proper tools isn't going to stop people from planning.
The thing that annoys me the most though is how poorly this has been handled by PP. With stupid passive aggressive responses, and their superior moral tone they have turned what could have been a productive discussion into the holy war of measurement devices. It can still all be fixed I'm just honestly not sure they want to fix it.
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on May 3, 2017 8:52:58 GMT
If planning out all the options you have and working out what can go where before you move a model is a problem I really do not get this point, in part due to the reason you mentioned. Do PP honestly want us to play without planning our turns? I don't see how you can have a tactical wargame without planning at the very least a turn ahead.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on May 3, 2017 8:59:10 GMT
I really do not get this point, in part due to the reason you mentioned. Do PP honestly want us to play without planning our turns? I don't see how you can have a tactical wargame without planning at the very least a turn ahead. The scary thought is maybe that's how they play! But in all seriousness PP has very strange thought processes sometimes....Reading their "Exemplary" Battle Report, even as a THEORETICAL, just gives a off insight into their minds....They really think Critical Effects ar the bee's knees. And maybe that makes sense for a group of people that don't like planning out their turns.
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Post by pangurban on May 3, 2017 9:28:59 GMT
Requiring cleanup after every activation, not just at the end of your turn, would go a long way towards getting people to use just the proxies they need instead of as many as they want. It would also make some legitimate uses very annoying. For example: "This is where my Gladiator will go, now I need to activate my Beast Handlers to Enrage/Prod/Heal, my Willbreaker for Puppet Master and my Warlock to keep the Gladiator in Control". All of that is possible with one marker, but not if I have to pick it up and place it anew (in this example) three times. I don't think that's a useful solution. Sure, but if we're looking for a compromise then something's got to give. I don't want any restrictions on premeasuring and/or proxy use myself, but apparently that's not in the cards.
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Post by maximumhippo on May 3, 2017 9:37:22 GMT
I really do not get this point, in part due to the reason you mentioned. Do PP honestly want us to play without planning our turns? I don't see how you can have a tactical wargame without planning at the very least a turn ahead. The scary thought is maybe that's how they play! But in all seriousness PP has very strange thought processes sometimes....Reading their "Exemplary" Battle Report, even as a THEORETICAL, just gives a off insight into their minds....They really think Critical Effects ar the bee's knees. And maybe that makes sense for a group of people that don't like planning out their turns. Random is fun. This is the main problem with PP's process or whatever. They have this amazing cognitive dissonance where random effects like crits or d3 shots are fun, but then they want to have an airtight, no room for ambiguity, competitive ruleset. It's not that you can't have both, but it really shows the disconnect between the competitive and casual mindset when you try to apply 'casual' ideology to competition. I'm not trying to say that competition can't be fun, it most certainly can be. Generally speaking however, it's not really possible (IMO) to be competitive with a 'casual' attitude.
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on May 3, 2017 9:38:19 GMT
If planning out all the options you have and working out what can go where before you move a model is a problem I really do not get this point, in part due to the reason you mentioned. Do PP honestly want us to play without planning our turns? I don't see how you can have a tactical wargame without planning at the very least a turn ahead. I think they want you to have a general idea of what you want to do, but to not hinge your plans on where *exactly* a model will end up when you are moving other models than the model in question. I think I get that the argument is that you cannot (openly) be precise about planning if you cannot put down table markers. That you want to know exactly where model A will end up later while you are moving model B. But PP's vision is that you can only be precise about the model you are currently moving, i.e. model B. If it causes imprecision and hesitation to not know exactly where model A, that you haven't moved yet, will be placed later in the turn, that imprecision is meant by PP to be part of playing the game. Or if you want to use internal tricks in your head to figure out exact placement without using a marker, then having the skills to be able to do those tricks is meant to be part of being good at the game.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on May 3, 2017 9:57:59 GMT
Depends on the game. And it wasn't adding a critical effect because it was fun, but because they honestly thought that it would motivate people to go into melee with Black Ivan.
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on May 3, 2017 11:18:35 GMT
And it wasn't adding a critical effect because it was fun, but because they honestly thought that it would motivate people to go into melee with Black Ivan. It is interesting. I imagine that PP think that people are motivated by the excitement of potential, that this makes the game more dynamic and dramatic. Which I get. I think PP value the "wow!" factor that you can get from critical hits. "Yes, I scored a critical!". And there are probably players out there that value that too. But I think the people that analyse the game online, i.e. us, don't care about that, because we value reliability more. Not potential, but boring, consistent efficiency. So often, PP aren't designing rules for us, they are designing them for another type of player. But that is a problem when it comes to online debates, because the other type of player isn't online debating. Only we are. The ones that value boring, consistent efficiency.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on May 3, 2017 11:26:42 GMT
So often, PP aren't designing rules for us, they are designing them for another type of player. But that is a problem when it comes to online debates, because the other type of player isn't online debating. Only we are. The ones that value boring, consistent efficiency. I don't buy it at all. You don't accidentally stumble into a Box of Warmachine. They sell those at hobby shops, and even if your in there for boardgames, the boardgames they sell are of the more complicated rules variety. A person who just wants to have fun with randomness (Yet doesn't have enough math skills to understand how unlikely a crit is) buys Chutes and ladders from the local Toys R Us. They don't buy an expensive game that requires special tools to assemble, and then skill and time to paint. Anybody in a hobby store will most likely be familiar with the basic maths required to understand how low a crit effect is likely to trigger. And that's not exciting. Heck with basic math skills one would realise that Black Ivans Claw is a freaking Pow 16, which is 1 Point Lower then Pow 17.
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on May 3, 2017 11:41:58 GMT
I don't buy it at all. You don't accidentally stumble into a Box of Warmachine. They sell those at hobby shops, and even if your in there for boardgames, the boardgames they sell are of the more complicated rules variety. A person who just wants to have fun with randomness (Yet doesn't have enough math skills to understand how unlikely a crit is) buys Chutes and ladders from the local Toys R Us. They don't buy an expensive game that requires special tools to assemble, and then skill and time to paint. Anybody in a hobby store will most likely be familiar with the basic maths required to understand how low a crit effect is likely to trigger. And that's not exciting. Heck with basic math skills one would realise that Black Ivans Claw is a freaking Pow 16, which is 1 Point Lower then Pow 17. I get what you're saying - but if it were true, that would make PP into some kind of imbeciles, the only people in the gaming world who actually think something like a critical effect is a cool, exciting thing. Wouldn't it? I feel like it's more likely that other people think so too, even if those people aren't people we are in daily contact with. And I also think it's possible to think that criticals are exciting while at the same time understanding that they are unlikely. That seems to be what PP think. I don't think they design critical effects because they don't understand maths.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on May 3, 2017 11:43:50 GMT
Gonna give my 2 pence on the whole thing
It is clear that PP clearly underestimated the extent to which people would pre-measure, their instructions of 'anything at any time' and of 'go wild' in hindsight they probably regret. This shows a great degree of naivety on PPs part as they should by now know who they are dealing with when it comes to their players, and it was not hard to predict the 'proxy-palooza' that has supposedly occurred.
In my own personal experience, I have not yet played a game where I have been frustrated by the amount of measuring and proxying done by my opponent, I know that does not mean it is not as rife as PP claim, however I have not find 'proxy-palooza' to be the norm by any means, however this is my own experience and therefore is not indicative of an awful lot. But I would question that the problem they are trying to fix even exists.
the two stated aims of this change seem to be two-fold
1) to reduce clutter on the table - I feel this is down to PP wanting to increase the streaming coverage and online presence of their game, and they want it to look good to spectators, however most players do not care about this, and are not obliged to care in my opinion.
2) to bring back some uncertainty, and force people to commit to actions - this is the main problem of what they are trying to achieve, they don't want people to fail a charge, but they also don't want people to plan out their turn in detail to make sure there is no uncertainty about whether they can achieve a certain goal. I do not think there is a middle ground to be found where both of these can be accommodated, and done so clearly and easily enough in a game that there are no disputes. I have no doubt there are staffers at PP who regret the addition of pre-measuring in Mk3, and would take it back if they felt like they could. As far as I am concerned they either need to leave it as it is, or go back to how it worked in Mk2.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on May 3, 2017 11:51:53 GMT
I get what you're saying - but if it were true, that would make PP into some kind of imbeciles, the only people in the gaming world who actually think something like a critical effect is a cool, exciting thing. Wouldn't it? I feel like it's more likely that other people think so too, even if those people aren't people we are in daily contact with. And I also think it's possible to think that criticals are exciting while at the same time understanding that they are unlikely. That seems to be what PP think. I don't think they design critical effects because they don't understand maths. You know for a while I thought PP where actually that Stupid....But Ghost fleet convinced me that they at least knew something. Nobody thought that was a good list on release. That it was laugh worthy. Well aint nobody laughing now. I think its just a case of them being hyper focused on one aspect and forgetting a bunch of others during development and playtesting.
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zich
Junior Strategist
Posts: 690
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Post by zich on May 3, 2017 12:08:25 GMT
Ghost fleet is a good example where a lot of players (including me) were totally wrong and PP totally right. It's a good example of what a theme force can be.
This is I think an example of the opposite and it became apparent rather quickly. The day after the SR CID was released I played two games against newer players and while I don't remember for the first, the second one already provided us with a situation where a new player - purely by intuition and without malice - violated the measurement marker rule (and would still have under the current wording). And what am I supposed to do then? Tell that guy that yes, he can premeasure anything anytime, but not like that? That him marking two locations at the same time was somehow against the spirit of the game and he's supposed to guesstimate locations instead? I don't like putting unnecessary burdens upon newer players so I just said nothing. The game is complicated enough as is. Sure, that's just one example but I think it illustrates nicely how the current ruling is not only impractical, but also counterintuitive to new players.
I'm all for a compromise and I think a simple and effective one would be: "You can have up to 5 things on the play area that are not models (or standins for models) or active effects. You can only place those on your time and need to clean them up before passing time to your opponent. To avoid confusion these markers need to be labled if they remain on the table for moree than one activation."
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on May 3, 2017 12:15:40 GMT
This whole discussion makes me ponder.
When Mk3 was released, everyone was happy and said that WM was the last game of this type that still clung on to the old GW paradigm of no premeasuring. The closest equivalents to WM, Malifaux and Infinity, had already switched over to allow premeasuring and everyone loved it.
So... if widgetgate is a thing in WM, then what's the story with Malifaux and Infinity? Is the table being cluttered up with table markers a thing unique to WM, or is it present in those other games too? Is it considered a problem there too? And if not, why not?
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spideredd
Junior Strategist
Summer Gamer
Posts: 588
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Post by spideredd on May 3, 2017 12:21:09 GMT
I have a poor short term memory. If someone is placing ten measure-markers, all for different things, I'm going to forget what the first one represents by the time you get to the fifth. I'm not against the idea of multiple measure-markers, they really are a valuable tool, but I am against the idea of excessive measure-markers.
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